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Today I am going to share with you some wonderful pieces of antler art that I have stumbled upon. They vary from lights to jewelry and everything inbetween. My favorite piece, which I won’t be able to share here, is a bib necklace of sliced antlers that I gave one of my friends for her brithday this past year. That piece really started my thinking of how versitile of a medium antlers are. So, without further ado, here they are!

I’ve compiled a list of five of my all-time favourite television shows (some of which I have discovered extremely recently)! All of these are slightly offbeat and odd, but I think that’s what makes them so special…

Oddities (2010-)-

I came across this show awhile ago, and have to say that it is absolutely amazing. Evan Michelson and Mike Zohn co-own an amazingly quirky antique shop, Obscura Antiques and Oddities, in New York. They sell and buy stuff from mummified body parts to sideshow memorabilia. The show also features buyer Ryan Matthew Cohn, who is extremely interesting (and has the most perfect suits!!). The eccentric customers who come into their shop are really what make this show special, however. They are constantly demonstrating their talents or sharing the most captivating of stories. (Science Network)

American Stuffers (2012-)-

This show revolves around taxidermist Ted Ross. His shop, Xtreme Taxidermy in Romance, Arkansas, specializes in pet preservation. He works with three eclectic employees and his family. It’s heartbreaking to watch pet owners suffering the loss of their best friends, but it’s rewarding to see how meaningful it is for them to have their pets back with them again. I am also intrigued by the process that Ted uses to preserve these pets. Instead of traditional mounting (where the hide is mounted to a mold), he uses freeze drying technology that allows for the preservation of the actual, physical body. (Animal Planet)

Family Plots (2004-2006)-

Family Plots followed the family running Poway Bernardo Mortuary in Poway , California. Although the show mostly chronicled the running of the home and the relationships within the family, it also gave viewers into the “mysterious” world of the funeral business. It is extremely interesting for me, for I am considering going into the funeral business, but really is enchanting for anyone. Although this show has not run for a few years, episodes can still be found online if you try to dig them up (oh…bad joke). (A&E Network)

Mysteries at the Museum (2011-)-

This show relays the history of numerous artifacts in multiple museums. Some include shrunken heads at the Mütter Museum, the damage caused by a hydrogen bomb at the National Museum of Nuclear Science History, and even Marilyn Monroe’s Pill Box. I really enjoy the fact that with this show you get to truly understand each individual artifact, because sometimes it is burdensome and awkward to read tiny plaques in front of things. Every episode is unique and extremely interesting. (Travel Channel)

10 Things You Don’t Know About (2012-) –

Taglined as “What your textbooks never told you,” this show shares some interesting facts about history’s best known people. For example, did you know that Benjamin Franklin was a suspected serial killer, that Mormons built Las Vegas, or that Abraham Lincoln slept with men? Historian David Eisenbach shares some of history’s best kept secrets. (H2)

Looking through this list that I’ve compiled, I’m realizing that some of these shows seem rather macabre… but maybe that’s just what I’m into haha. The hipster in me is sad that these types of shows and interests are becoming more and more “mainstream”, but at the same time, I’m so happy that these topics are being opened up to a broader audience.

Since Easter is fast approaching, what better time to talk about chickens?!?! I thought I would share with you my latest adventure (in regards to chicken)…

A few weeks ago, I decided to set out on the quest of articulating the skeleton on an animal. I came to the conclusion that a chicken would be my best option. It would be easy to find one, they couldn’t have that many bones, and it would be small enough that I could easily assemble it. All three of these assumptions were wrong, but out of it I got my darling chicken, Fitzwilliam.

FIRST STEP: Let’s talk about the splendid experience of finding a chicken. I assumed that when chickens arrive at the supermarket, they are all intact. The butcher gets rid of the neck and legs and freshly puts them on display. This is not so. Apparently chickens do NOT arrive with these parts.

My first stop was ACME. Now, they do not have the best butchery department, but hey, they must have CHICKENS for god’s sake. Here’s how my conversation with the butcher went:

Butcher: “Hi there! How can I help you?”

ME: “I’m looking for a chicken. Would you happen to have one?”

Butcher: “Why, yes! They’re right over there”

ME: “No, I’m sorry. I meant, do you have any chickens with, you know…the head and feet still attached?”

Butcher: “HAHAHAHAH!!! What, are you doing some type of satanic sacrifice? No, we don’t carry them here. You’ll have to look around for one of them…”

And he was quite right. I was going to have to look around. I decided then that I was going to call places before running around like a chicken without a head (hehehe). I called so many butchers, grocery stores, and markets, but to no avail. I either got laughed at or hung up on. I guess that my request wasn’t the norm…FINALLY on a whim I decided that I would go out to the Asian Market as a final desperate chance.

I walked up to the butcher here and had basically the same conversation as previously depicted, but instead of the butcher laughing at me, he just walked away and went into the back. I didn’t know what to do so I just waited for about a minute. Then he finally came out with Fitzwilliam. My Chicken.

I glowed as I walked up to the cash-register. Finally, It would be easy sailing from here. WRONG.

SECOND STEP: Getting the bones. I knew that I was going to have to boil the chicken because I didn’t have a colony of flesh eating bugs on hand. So, I got to experience the wonderful smell of over-boiled chicken!

THIRD STEP: Clean the bones. It was relatively late at night when I started to separate the meat from the bones and remove the cartilage. Little did I know that it would take a few hours for this process alone.

FOURTH STEP: Bleach the bones. As I finished cleaning each bone, I placed it into a bath of hydrogen peroxide. Once all of them were in, I added bleach. Apparently, when you mix hydrogen peroxide and bleach, you get a white foam…

FIFTH STEP: Clean them again…because anything left on the bones will now come off easier. Then rinse.

SIXTH STEP: Articulate. Much easier said than done. No matter how many pictures you look at, nothing seems to fit together. In the end, I took artistic liberties and created Fitzwiliam.

He may not have ribs or feet, or even be atomically correct, but I adore him. His journey was one of adventure: from the back room of an Asian Food Market to my office shelf. Maybe one day I will be able to make him a proper sibling, but until then, he’s perfect. <3